Sales as a Science Masterclass

Jacco vanderKooij, Founder, Winning By Design

Jacco’s energetic session (fuelled by his contagious enthusiasm and a dash of Redbull) discussed the challenges of technology’s “superstar” sales culture and suggested a paradigm shift towards a more sustainable “science” sales culture.

Organizations that have a superstar culture are precarious because when the superstar leaves the company or underperforms, the tools, skills, process, and everything else topples. A science culture reverses the pyramid and fixes process problems instead of people problems.

Jacco went on to describe how the risk in sales relationships has flipped from the consumer to the vendor with the evolution of the recurring revenue model. Why then, has the way we sell and reward sellers not evolved to reflect this new status quo?

He then discussed how no one sales process (consultative, challenger, etc.) will be effective—instead we need an end to end methodology that spans the entire organization, not just sales. And most importantly, you need to measure each stage of your process to ensure clarity, accountability and iterative improvements to increase revenue.

In the same way you build a product strategy, you should build an investment strategy

Are you building a $7M company, a $75M company, or a $750M company? Depending on your goal, your investment strategy will differ.

Switching capital structure is expensive and distracting for your business so be wary of how your capital is structured in the early days to minimize the risk of changes down the line.

Common shares all the way thorough can keep things simple.

Recurring revenue businesses are valuable. There is value in the metrics—you can secure against MRR. For a long time, Canadian banks were not giving enough credit (literally!) to these businesses—and US banks still aren’t.

Canadian Revenue Agency audits approximately 25% of SR&ED businesses. If you have SR&ED, ensure your documentation and time tracking are in order—these are two areas the CRA examines.

Venture-backed companies are defined by their growth. Velocity is key. If this is not a fit for your business, consider other options. Doubling employees and revenue is not sustainable for all companies.